


This was a home once

by demonn



Series: I’ll do anything for you [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Past Child Abuse, Reginald Hargreeves A+ parenting, Stuttering, flangst, he Shut Diego in a fucking tank ok, he was a fucking horrible man, i am my own sorrow, im just hurting myself with my own writing, possible panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 17:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17902511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonn/pseuds/demonn
Summary: How could he be better if he was barely a man; more husk of a phantom than a fleshy body, more shadows and knives than feelings, more desire than anything else.





	This was a home once

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from ‘this was a home once’ by Badsuns

Their home could barely be called a home, and really that was the worst bit. (More a prison than a home, more a reminder than a comfort). They’d stayed there for most of their life, they’d ate breakfast at that table and ate lunch and dinner together at the same time for 17 years. They’d lived the same routine for 17 years but the moment they left it all became meaningless.

(Diego tried to hold onto the fact that it hadn’t become meaningless the moment Five left, the routine had solidified, if anything. It had truly become meaningless the moment Ben died.)

It was only a pit stop on their journey, a chance to look the Academy up and down and say “I became better than you.” But even then, older and wiser and braver than they had been as children, the words had dried up in Diego’s throat.

The door was open and he could see the hallway and all of a sudden he became that scared little boy again, confused as to why they had too hold their breath for so long. Confused as to why they had nightmares about drowning and dying light-headed, confused as to why he hadn’t drowned in the bathtub.

(What hurt the most was that he had been _proud_ , proud that he had a chance to impress father, proud that he wasn’t as useless as he’d thought he was.

He tried to forget that he had to kill himself to figure all that out.)

He was sure the old man wasn’t there, that Mom was sitting by her paintings and thinking about them, he was sure that pogo was off reading a book somewhere and that the house was deadly silent. Klaus had always complained about the voices, about how it seemed the house itself was _screaming_. Diego could understand to an extent. Sure, there were no voices, but it seemed every second he stayed in that place, every time he even looked over, the wooden frame would _groan_ and _ache_ and _scream_ for him to come home, for him to make their father proud, to be better than the rest of them.

He couldn’t be better though, not when he still stuttered around each word spoken to the man, not when it felt like his mouth was filling with blood each time he was asked to do something, not when his bones creaked with effort and he ached in ways no twenty-seven year old ever should have. Not when he knew longing most fierce and how to stomach loss before he could even speak the word.

How could he be better if he was barely a man; more husk of a phantom than a fleshy body, more shadows and knives than feelings, more desire than anything else.

Klaus put a hand on the steering wheel, shifting Diego’s foot until he could firmly press his own on there. He started slowly, not even a hint of a snicker in his voice as he drove them away from the academy, too late to be reprimanded for their driving skills, too dark for anyone to be able to see the little car swerving across the roads.

He took them to ‘Griddy’s donuts’ and got the sweetest coffee he could find for himself and a cup of pitch black whatever for him, setting it in front of Diego as his pale fingers carefully broke the donut in two.

“It’s hard seeing that, isn’t it? Just like it’s hard looking at a mausoleum... or a tank.”

He’d only told Klaus, and consequently Ben, about the tank- the large, long enclosure that dad would shove him into. He was meant to hold his breath, if he didn’t survive then he wasn’t worthy. He would not eat, he would not drink, he would not be allowed to see anyone other than dad and Pogo and Mom when she came to let him out. As much as she was a program made by Mr. Hargreeves himself, she was a mother. The one that held them and fed them and made sure they were well. The light in the darkness of each corridor.

The tank symbolised weakness and failure, symbolised him being second best. He knew that logically, every one of them had been punished (Klaus had the mausoleum, Allison had her mouth taped shut, five had been tied down in a straight jacket in the locks dad had created to make him _stay_ down, Ben had been stripped naked and told to fight, over and over until even the tentacles ached, Vanya went without her violin, had her hands tied together and the awful chalkboard screeching) but he never knew what Luther had. He’d been sent to the moon, sure, but when it came to the painful shit? It seemed Luther hadn’t understood what they meant by pain.

(He figures he should be happy about that, but even he wasn’t dumb enough to think that. Luther had always been the favourite, their leader, their number one, and he always felt guilty when he thought about putting a knife through his brain. Never for long, though.)

He absently reached for the donut, chewing down the fluffy, glazed semi-circle mechanically, forcing it down with A sip of black coffee.

“You ok, babes. As much as you hate talking about it we _gotta_ talk about it,” Klaus murmured, small hands enveloping Diego’s large one. “This goes both ways? Ok. I’m not the only one that needs a bit of healing. Ain’t that right Ben?”

Diego grunted, finishing off the rest of the coffee, as boiling as it was, and crunched down the cup in his first,, hand tightening almost rhythmically. “T-that house is fucking creepy.”

“I know it is, darling, but we gotta be able to say we’re better than it, huh? It’s progress. It’s moving forward. It’s what you deserve.”

“We,” Diego corrected after a beat, “what we deserve.”

“Yes,” Klaus agreed. “What the three of us deserve. We deserve a good life, we deserve something good all three of us.”

“You deserve n-new clothes, and someone that doesn’t have you living in the b-back of a car-“

“It’s a pretty nice car, love,” Klaus teased, leaning forward to lock the whipped cream off his coffee. “But yeah, tighter clothes would be nice. But I l- you’re my family and I don’t care if I have to hole up in the bark of a car with you each night if it means I get to keep you.”

“Maybe you d-don’t d-d-deserve nice c-clothes. You c-can stay in a t-t-turtleneck for the rest of you life.” Diego’s face softened, less ‘I want to die’ and more ‘I’m perfectly fine with seeing all of you die’. The words had barely made their way out of his throat, cloying and rough and aching like a fresh wound

 

“Ok, rude. A feather boa would suffice though? I look washed out like this.”

“You always look w-washed out, you vain little shit.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night.” Klaus though he neared a faint whisper of “ _you_ ” but after a moment, chalked it down to the voices playing tricks on him again.

(They’d always been particularly cruel.)


End file.
